There's a few topics that we try to avoid - politics and religion are two. There's only been a few people where I've put them on my "avoid" list.

We have standard operation procedures - with thousands of pilots, we have to follow the framework of our SOPs so that we operate the flight safely - we need to know what to expect of each other, and what the other person is going to do.

1. The flight attendent calling up and asking us to turn on the seat belts because somone was doing yoga in the galley, and refused to leave.

2. I have a small grasp of French - when we were deplaning after a redeye, a little old lady walked by and was saying "jamais (my airline) jamais (my airline)" I thought she was saying "J'aime (my airline)" so I put on my biggest smile and said "Merci beaucoup madame, merci beaucoup"... The in charge flight attendant just about fell over laughing. So J'aime means I like/love... Jamais means never again. So this lady comes up and is saying never again will I fly with you - and I smiled super big and thanked her very much.

Yes - the closest one was after landing in a harbour, and there was another floatplane that landed just in front of me - no radio calls, no nothing. Just an asshole who thought that 100' was enough room.

At the airline level, we have software called TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) - it can 'see' other aircraft around and knows their altitude. If we get too close, it will alert us (starting at about 30 seconds prior to a potential collision). If we continue to get closer, it will change to a "resolution advisory" and give us guidance (such as a climb or descent) to avoid a collision.

Tailspin is/was one of my favourite shows as well! There were a few times when I'd do a charter and have a few hours of sitting around - if the weather was nice, I'd climb on top of the airplane and jump off the wings into the water!

To expand on my previous answer - most companies have an "avoid" list. If you put somone on your list, the software does it's best to avoid putting the two of you together.

I've only ever put two people on my avoid list - one for constant, wildly inappropriate discussion, even after I asked him to stop. The other was just a holier-than-thou, god's gift to aviation guy I couldn't stand.

The flight attendants have a similar list - I was once in a cab with the other pilot, and two FAs - the one FA was telling the other FA how they had almost 60 people on their avoid list. The captain was sitting in the front seat, reading the newspaper. He casually lowered the paper, leaned back, and said "Did you ever think it wasn't everyone else?", and goes back to reading his paper. LOL